Late night hosts wryly deconstruct Trump's 'nutty' theory elderly Buffalo protester Martin Gugino is an 'antifa provocateur'

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/Late Night, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Late Show, The Daily Show)

published 10 June 2020

The nationwide protests against George Floyd's murder and police brutality in black communities are now "squarely in the American mainstream," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show, pointing to a new Washington Post poll in which 74 percent of Americans — and 53 percent of Republicans — support the protests. "What has taken a hit in popularity are monuments to America's racist history, like Confederate statues and Donald Trump."

Trump's considering giving a speech on race, but "we may have gotten a little preview of Trump's sensitive approach to police violence" when he "weighed in on Buffalo police violently pushing an elderly protester," Martin Gugino, Colbert said. "Trump is trying to demonize the man because he knows he has to convince all the old white voters that he needs to get re-elected not to sympathize with Gugino — which is a tall order, because it turns out Martin Gugino is a pretty sympathetic character."

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"It takes a special kind of monster to see a peaceful 75-year-old man shoved to the ground by police so hard he bleeds from the ears and take the side of the concrete," but Trump isn't alone, Jimmy Kimmel said. Republican National Committee spokeswoman Elizabeth Harrington "posted a completely nutty conspiracy theory" claiming Gugino "was using prop blood attached to an elaborate device." They're claiming "a 75-year-old man was using his cellphone to scan police communication equipment in order to black it out," he recapped. "I feel like anyone who's tried to Zoom with their grandparents knows there's no possible way that's true."

"While Democrats are proposing legislation to reform the police," The Daily Show's Trevor Noah said, "Trump is so desperate to defend the police that instead of admitting that maybe they used excessive force and that none of them helped a person who was bleeding out on the ground, he turns around and blames the old man from that video for being an 'antifa provocateur' who bashed his head open on purpose? ... That is some bats--t crazy theory."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.